Bread manufacture, or panification, includes three principal operations: the kneading operation intended to convert the flour and water into dough, at least two fermentations, and the baking which converts the fermented dough into bread. To these three principal operations are added several handling sub-operations such as weighing, cutting up of pieces or forming, which enable the future loaves to be shaped. This manufacturing is relatively labour-intensive and has to be performed under sometimes difficult night-time working conditions, and this is why attempts have already been made to overcome these constraints by providing automatic panification machines as described, for example, in FR-A-2,515,001 or in U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,314 whose subject is a doughnut-making machine, that is to say a field which, whilst being different from panification, sometimes poses similar problems.
Automatic bread-manufacturing apparatuses have already been provided, see for example that marketed under the reference HB B100 of the HITACHI Company and those described in EP-0,243,364, W0-84/02449, EP-0,131,264 or EP-0,113,327 and which are provided for domestic use in the housewife's kitchen. Such apparatuses essentially comprise a container into which the ingredients (flour, salt, water, yeast, etc.) are put manually and then mixed therein, the baking being performed in the same container or in a stationary additional container and then extracted from the apparatus in order to withdraw and release the bread thus manufactured. It goes without saying that such apparatuses are completely inappropriate for a use intended to satisfy a large demand for bread, whereas known industrial installations are either not entirely automatic and do not operate continuously, such as that described in FR-A-2,515,001, or are complicated large installations which require both workforces to use them and workforces to maintain them, in order to satisfy the obligatory hygiene and inspection conditions imposed in industries manufacturing products for human consumption.
The problem which is posed, consequently, is to supply a panification process and machine which palliate the disadvantages of the known processes and machines.
It is, consequently, a general object of the invention to provide a solution to this problem by proposing a process and a machine using which products as varied and of as good a quality as those from conventional panification can be obtained whilst allowing industrial-type automatic and continuous use.
In addition, it is an object of the invention to provide a process and a machine which enable, starting from basic raw materials which vary depending on the origin of the supplies specific to each culture, the manufactured products to be modified as required, in particular as regards their organoleptic qualities, their shapes, their weights and, in general, their characteristics, so as to render the said products as close as possible to the taste and eating habits of the populations which benefit therefrom.
It is, furthermore, an object of the invention to supply a versatile machine which operates entirely automatically and continuously, has a relatively limited overall size and which, consequently, can be installed in places of use where the space available is limited, for example ships, but, in addition, in a completely different context, restaurant installations for public or private organisations or even places of use which are inhospitable on account of their climatic conditions.
It is, likewise, an object of the invention to provide a compact machine requiring only little energy for its operation and whose dimensions are such that it can be transported, with the usual handling means, to places where food supplies do not exist or exist no longer, for example following a natural disaster or the like, and which, as soon as it is installed and put into operation, enables bread to be supplied in large quantity.